Saint Clare
Female-fronted serial killer thriller ain't heavenly nor holier than thou.
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I was curious about “Saint Clare” (available in select theaters and on VOD beginning Friday, July 18) when it was pitched to me as a review subject. It’s a female-fronted serial killer thriller, which we don’t often see and definitely piqued my interest … unfortunately, the movie couldn’t maintain it.
Bella Thorne stars as Clare Bleecker, a Catholic college student who lost her parents in a car accident and lives with her pothead grandma Gigi (Rebecca De Mornay … this made me feel hella old even if the actress doesn’t read as grandmotherly).
Clare has gal pals at school including Juliana LeBlanc (Joy Rovaris) and Amity Liston (Erica Dasher). Clare’s homebound homeboy is Mailman Bob (seasoned character actor Frank Whaley), an imaginary friend who’s the ghost of a postman who drunkenly made a pass at her and died for his sins.
Complications arise when Amity’s ex-boyfriend Wade Bradon (Dylan Flashner, this dude seems to have a thing for goofy serial killer filler having starred in “Like Father Like Son” (my review here) from earlier this year) takes a romantic interest in Clare. Complicating matters even more is Clare turning the tables on wannabe kidnapper Joe Morton (Bart Johnson) by killing the creep. (Why y’all gotta do the Miles Dyson actor dirty by naming this heel after him?) Det. Rich Timmons (Ryan Phillippe) canvasses the campus searching for Morton’s murderer and eventually sets his sights upon Clare.
“Saint Clare” as directed by Italian filmmaker Mitzi Peirone (“Braid”) and co-scripted by Peirone and Guinevere Turner is an adaptation of Don Roff’s novel “Clare at 16.” There are interesting ideas at play within the material (Clare is convinced she’s killing on God’s behalf and often compares herself to Joan of Arc), but it never adds up to a cohesive whole.
Whaley’s Mailman Bob is a compelling character somewhat reminiscent of Griffin Dunne’s role in “An American Werewolf in London,” but the movie lazily and unceremoniously does away with him. I actually like Thorne’s performance, but wish the script served her better. Turner had a hand in adapting “American Psycho” and “BloodRayne” and I’d say this qualitatively skews closer to the Uwe Boll joint as opposed to the Mary Harron one.
There’s an engrossing and entertaining film somewhere within “Saint Clare” and I wish I would’ve seen it, but this is a narrative tightrope walk that the filmmakers unfortunately take a nosedive from via thematic and tonal lapses.